Wi-Fi and Wireless Devices at Night

• Use cables where you can. Plug computers, printers and televisions into the network with a wire instead of using wireless.
• If you keep Wi-Fi, switch the router off at night, by hand or with a plug-in timer, and place it away from beds and favorite chairs. If you can borrow a radio-frequency meter, take readings with the router running and again with it switched off.
• Do not sleep beside a phone that is on. Phones keep exchanging signals with the network even when idle. Keep the charger away from the bed, ideally out of the bedroom.
• Turn tablets and laptops fully off at night, not just to sleep mode.
• Use a corded landline for long calls. Cordless phone bases tend to read high; if you have one, keep the base well away from sitting and sleeping areas.
• Use a phone's speaker, or text, rather than holding it to your head, and she advised against wireless earpieces.
• Place a baby monitor on the far side of the room. A battery model is better still.
• Keep beds off the other side of a wall with a smart meter, and away from a window that faces a nearby transmitter.

Her own home followed these rules: computer, printer and television on cables, a landline for calls, and a cell phone left in the car for emergency use.

Evidence: Inspector's practice (precautionary).

One inspector was called to a 100-year-old townhouse by a man whose symptoms (brain fog, poor sleep and headaches) came on inside the house and eased when he was away. He had already paid for mold removal, with no change, and hoped a microscope would find mold the remediators missed. She found no mold, no gas leak and no chemical problem. His modem sat about seven feet from where he spent his days. She suggested he turn it off, and he felt the pressure in his head ease almost at once. A week later he reported that his symptoms were gone, he was sleeping, and he could think clearly again.

Her takeaway was that a house can make someone ill for reasons other than mold, and that sensible detective work checks everything. In another home, a mother used a meter to trace high readings at her child's bed to a television, a modem and a wireless printer, then simply moved or unplugged them.

Evidence: Inspector's practice (precautionary). One case cannot prove a cause; other explanations are always possible.

Current guidance: IARC classes radio-frequency fields as possibly carcinogenic (Group 2B, 2011), its weakest positive category. WHO finds no health effects established from exposures below international limits, which are based mainly on heating of tissue. WHO accepts that people who report electromagnetic hypersensitivity have real and sometimes disabling symptoms, but blinded provocation studies have not shown radio-frequency fields to be the cause.

The inspector went further than official guidance as a precaution. Most of her steps cost nothing and take little effort, which is why many people choose to try them for a few weeks and see how they sleep. If you still snore, wake up gasping or feel unrefreshed after a full night, ask your doctor about a sleep study; sleep apnea is common, treatable and easy to miss.

This page is for education only. It is not medical, legal or engineering advice. The inspector whose work this builds on was an environmental consultant, not a physician. Talk with your doctor about health concerns, and use licensed professionals for electrical work and large mold jobs. Products, prices and labs mentioned reflect the years they were recorded and may have changed.

Source: the field work of environmental inspector May Dooley, MS, MA, CMC

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